Documents of the Right Word

A collection of small books written by Sunni scholars for answering Shi'a claims.

knowledge is

knowledge is the most necessary and the most useful for me? What is the knowledge that will come to my rescue in the Hereafter, which will be my companion in grave when all my friends go away and leave me alone, and will save me on the Rising Day when mothers will forsake their children, brothers will run away from one another, worldly friends will overlook each other and everybody will be in a flurry of saving his head? And what knowledge is unnecessary in the world and in the Hereafter? I wish I knew it and discard it? For our Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu alaihi wa sallam’ stated, ‘May Allâhu ta’âlâ protect us against learning useless knowledge, against a heart who does not fear Allâhu ta’âlâ, against a nafs that will not be satiated with worldlies, against eyes that will not weep for Allah, and against a prayer that will not deserve acceptance’.” After thinking for a long time, he decided to learn the answers to his questions and wrote a letter to his teacher Hujjat-ul-islâm Imâm-i-Ghazâlî (may Allâhu ta’âlâ fill his grave with nûr). Begging his teacher to pronounce benedictions over him, he added, “The answer to this question of mine is written in your books, i.e. in Ihyâ-ul-’Ulûm, Kimyâ-yi-sa’âdat, Tafsîrs, Hadîth-i-Erba’în, and Minhâj. However, will you please write me a concise, clear and useful answer so that I shall read it every morning and act accordingly.” Hujjat-ul-islâm Imâm-i-Ghazâlî wrote the following answer and sent it: – 442 –

FASL 1- O my beloved son and faithful friend! May Allâhu ta’âlâ give you a long, long life and bless you with the fortune of spending your lifetime worshipping and following the way He has prescribed! All sorts of teachings have been taken from our Prophet Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’. Any teaching not coming from him will be of no use. If you have not taken any ofthese pieces of advice that have spread all over the world, why have you stayed with me and studied with me so many years? 2- One ofthe worldwide teachings of our Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu alaihi wa sallam’ is this: “An omen signifying that Allâhu ta’âlâ will not have mercy on a born slave of His and that He will treat him with wrath and torment is his busying himself with things that will not be useful in this world or in the Hereafter and his killing his time in useless occupations. If a person spends one hour of his lifetime doing something disliked by Allâhu ta’âlâ, any degree of grief he would feel over it would not be too much. If a person is over forty years old and his pious deeds, i.e. thawâbs are not more than his wrongdoings, i.e. sins, let him prepare himself for Hell.” 3- This advice would be enough for those who understand well the meaning of this hadîth-i-sherîf. 4- Advice is easy to give and difficult to take. For advice is bitter and harâms taste sweet to those who follow their sensuous desires and run after worldly pleasures. As a matter of fact, Allâhu ta’âlâ purports in Qur’ân al-kerîm, “Make war with disbelievers! War will be bitter and troublesome for you. Things that come difficult to you, that is, commandments of Allâhu ta’âlâ, are beneficial, good for you. Things that come easy to you and which you like, i.e. harâms, are harmful and bad for you. Allâhu ta’âlâ knows those that are beneficial, and you do not know them.” Advice will have no effect on people like you, who learn useless things called knowledge and disguised in knowledge and who do not think oftheir life in the Hereafter but learn knowledge in order to make a show of superiority to others and only for worldly advantages instead of learning it in order to be useful to yourselves and others in this world and in the Hereafter. You think that knowledge without practice will save you and that having knowledge will exempt you from religious practices. Your case is an appalling paradox. For a learned person ought to know that – 443 –